


if i could fly

by founders



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Daddy Kink, Exhibitionism, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Panties, Pets, Phone Sex, it's all very vague sorry, john adopts a cat!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 19:50:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8173871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/founders/pseuds/founders
Summary: Everything for the past three months has been Gil, Gil, Gil. They'd spent so much time with each other that they'd practically moved in together. He’d gotten used to waking up and having Gil stretched out next to him, going to events with Gil on his arm, eating his meals with Gil across the table, fucking Gil and being fucked by Gil and falling into blissful sleep with Gil in his arms. It fucking sucks to have that suddenly taken away. He feels bereft, like something of him is missing. Empty.“Spend more time with us,” Hercules suggests, “Or, I don't know, adopt a cat or something.”John furrows his brows together, peering up at him through the tangle of curls that are starting to go crusty from the beer spilled over them.“You want me to adopt a cat to replace fucking my boyfriend?”.[author name used to be rosenbergs]





	

Having to say goodbye to Gil at the airport fucking sucks, and John doesn’t hesitate to tell him so.

“This fucking sucks,” he says, pulling on the strap of Gil’s carry on, slung over his shoulder, and Gil purses his lips together and shoots him a look.

“You think I do not know that? Because I do,” he replies, entirely too reasonable. John whines and digs his forehead into Gil’s shoulder.

“Stop acting like a child,” Gil chides him but slides his hand into John’s hair anyway, cupping the back of his head and holding him close. If John closes his eyes then he can imagine the bustle of hundreds of other people has disappeared, that the voices announcing delays and directions over the tannoy don’t exist. Someone jostles them, a man in a suit with his phone out, and John glares after him, abruptly brought back into reality.

Gil came into his life unexpectedly; all of the sudden he’d had a lapful of French exchange student at the first welcome back party of the year, Thomas Jefferson’s expensive whisky sitting sharp in his throat and the bass of the music humming through his body. Gil had been giggly and messy and slurring, and John had never seen anyone more beautiful. He’d had just over three months to fall in love with him, and now here he is, at the airport, saying goodbye.

“You know I will text, and call, and Skype,” Gil says, stroking his hair. “It is only a six hour time difference. It is not so bad. We will make it work.”

“I love you,” John mumbles into his collar, muffled, and Gil says _huh,_ like he hasn’t heard, so John pulls back and says, “I miss you,” instead.

Gil rolls his eyes. “I am right here. I have not gone anywhere for you to miss me.”

“Yet,” John replies darkly and Gil rolls his eyes again.

“Come,” he says, “I must check my bags in and then go through security. You will have to leave me before then.”

John shoots him a sharp look. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Of course not, Jacky,” Gil tilts his head and reaches out to rub his finger under John’s chin. “Five months is not so long. Your spring aligns with mine, you shall come visit me, _non?”_

All John can do is nod. “Come,” Gil says again, readjusting the strap over his shoulder. John follows him miserably to the queue to check in, slumped in on himself, his heart aching and resigned.

Twenty minutes goes by pretty fast, shuffling in the queue. There’s a brief moment where they scuffle over Gil’s passport near the front of the line, John laughing more at the uncomfortably long name crammed onto the small rectangle paper than at the traditional passport photo. Gil looks perfect, as always, hair pulled back and beard trimmed and full lips not smiling, but looking deliciously inviting anyway. He curls himself into the curve of Gil’s body and Gil rubs his hand up and down his back, over and over, murmuring things in French that John doesn’t understand.

He stands back as Gil checks in his luggage. His two bags get tagged and sent off, and then the lady behind the desk is smiling her painted lips and giving Gil his boarding passes, and it’s very nearly time to say goodbye. John’s throat feels incredibly tight. He swallows and swallows again, trying to keep the panic down. Gil’s hands touch his cheeks, those familiar long fingers, and John blinks up at him through wet eyes.

“Don’t go,” he says, because he has to, just once. Gil’s fingers stroke over his cheeks and catch tears that John wasn’t aware were falling.

“We will be fine,” he says firmly. “I will not let this die. This will not end until I meet my own.”

It’s a bit dramatic, John thinks, but he appreciates the sentiment. He sniffs wetly, suddenly aware of how unattractive he must look right now. He’s never been the prettiest crier, and he’s cried a lot today.

“You promise?” he asks and Gil nods, and keeps on nodding until the corners of John’s mouth tug up into a smile, laughing at this ridiculous man.

“There is the Jacky I know and adore,” he says in a soft voice. He pulls John in and presses their lips together and John sighs into it, the smoothness of Gil’s lips, the warm wet of his mouth. Gil hums and John smacks him when he realises it’s the French national anthem.

“Don’t be a dick,” he mumbles, but he’s grinning. Gil swoops down and kisses the edges of his smile, making him squirm. His hands move to John’s waist, big and warm, and John goes up on his tiptoes and leans into him.

“I have to go,” Gil says, but doesn’t move. John’s fingers tighten their hold on his shoulders, and he silently wishes that Gil just won’t move from this spot, that he’ll miss his flight and have to stay here in America, with John, forever. Gil rests his forehead against John’s and he closes his eyes, wrapping himself up in Gil, inhaling his scent.

Gil moves, eventually, pulls himself away. _Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go,_ John’s brain chants desperately, but all he can do is watch Gil prepare himself to leave. He must look miserable, arms wrapped around himself, oversized sweater slipping down his collar bones, cheeks mottled red and wet from his crying. Gil sighs, and his eyebrows slant together sadly, peering at him and frowning slightly.

“You are making this so difficult,” he whispers, and sighs again. “My heart… It hurts, too much.”

“Then stay,” he pleads, his voice barely there. Gil’s eyes tighten so much that little wrinkles appear and John wants to smooth them out with his thumbs but he can’t seem to move.

“You know I have to go.”

John shakes his head.

“I have to.”

“Please don’t, don’t leave me,” he says desperately and Gil steps forward and gathers him into his arms again.

“Never,” he whispers into John’s hair. John can feel him take a deep breath, pressing two lingering kisses to his forehead, and then he’s gone. John watches the long line of his back and sways, adrift, half of him wanting to pitch towards Gil and the other half too despairing to do anything but stay rooted to the spot.

The journey home is a bit of a blur. The uber driver seems to get that John’s basically just an empty shell of himself right now and leaves him alone. He stares out the window as the scenery all blends together, thinking about the yawning expanse of time between himself now and when he’ll get to see Gil again. Too long; it’s too fucking long, and he curses Gil out in his head for even coming in the first place, for crashing into John’s life like he did, for reaching into John’s chest and plucking out his heart, for looking after it so well that John couldn’t help but love him through the pain.

He immediately apologises, mumbling under his breath and wiping his eyes. It’s not Gil’s fault he’s so sickly in love; it’s not his fault that he has to go back home so soon. The exchange programme was only for a semester, that was always the plan for Gil, John was not a part of that plan. He can’t be angry over the fact that Gil is going home when it was always a non-negotiable point, whether or not John loved him.

He wishes he’d said it, said it properly, before he left. Not muffled into Gil’s shoulder, his mouth half full of his shirt, so the words were obscured and faint. He wants to say it loudly, wants to spell it out in massive letters so it can’t be mistaken, but it’s too late now. Perhaps three months is too soon to fall in love, but John knows he’s there. He can feel it in his heart, in his gut, the painful swoop of his stomach like he’s falling combined with the rush of blood through his body like he’s flying. It’s terrible and wonderful and he wishes he’d told Gil.

He slumps into his apartment, and stays there for pretty much the whole of the next week. Gil texts him and Gil calls him and Gil Skypes him and John lives for those moments. Every other moment he spends drunk or high or sleeping, though occasionally he gets some work done. He’s skipping class, he knows, but he can’t bring himself to care about it. Alexander drops by and frowns at him and Hercules drops by and sighs at him and Eliza drops by and gets high with him. It’s nice, sitting on the couch half baked with her, listening to her tell stories about her sisters that he’s pretty sure are entirely made up, her pupils blown and hands fluttering about like butterflies.

She convinces him to turn up to class, eventually, and he embarks on the bitterly cold mornings to his figure drawing classes, and then onto acrylic paints, and then to sculpture and textiles and a whole host of other subjects he’s wasting his time with. He’s a good artist, he knows this, but he’s not amazing. He enjoys it, more than the other subjects he’d taken, and certainly more than law, but he knows it’s a hobby more than anything. He doesn’t really need a job, won’t ever need a job, not with the cushion of his trust fund and his father’s apparent reluctance or perhaps paternal inability to cut him off completely, so John fucks around with paints because it makes his chest feel kind of warm and happy and doesn’t bother to look for anything else to do.

The only thing he likes more than painting, other than Gil, is fighting. He goes out and broods and sips on beers until his eyes cross and his blood feels hot, gazing at the crowd in the bar and sizing up who to pick a fight with. He likes to go for the biggest ones, the ones he knows can knock his teeth out, and he grins through the blood in his mouth and winds up for another punch.

It never ends well, always ends with him sat in someone’s kitchen, wincing as they apply antiseptic. It’s Hercules this time, all of his muscle hunched over as he dabs at John’s knuckles and tuts under his breath. John stares at the magnets tacked up on his fridge and swings his legs in the air, flexing his fingers once Hercules moves away.

He brings back a glass of water and John obediently swishes it around his mouth, grimacing as the salt sinks into his bleeding gums.

“Spit,” Hercules says, and John leans over and spits into the sink. He keeps swishing and spitting until the red of his blood isn’t so apparent, only small lines of it swirling down the drain.

Hercules sighs heavily. “I don't know why you do this,” he says, shaking his head.

John shrugs. “It’s fun.”

Hercules frowns. “No, it's not.”

John just shrugs again. “It gives me something to do. It takes my mind off… Other things.”

Hercules’ eyes narrow at this, his mother-henning flipping off like a light switch. “Gil knows, you know. He’s worried. He sees the black eyes, the split lips, the bruises on your knuckles. He’s really worried, John.”

John diverts his gaze down to his hands. He twists his fingers in his shirt, unsure of what to say.

“You’re hurting yourself, and it's hurting Gil.”

“You don't gotta guilt trip me, y’know,” he grumbles, an ache settling in his chest when he thinks about Gil being worried about him.

“I don't get it John,” Hercules sighs. “I just don't. You're bright, you're caring, you have a lot of talent and skill. What if you damage your hands, huh? Then you won't be able to paint.”

“Doesn't matter so much,” he mumbles. Hercules makes a noise like he's been wounded and John rubs at his eyes.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m being a melodramatic dick, I know. Life just really sucks right now.”

“It's not like Gil’s dead,” Hercules says flatly and John snaps, “I know that,” but Herc just carries on over the top of him.

“You’re making this harder for yourself by making everyone worry about you.”

“I’m just lonely,” John whispers.

Everything for the past three months has been _Gil, Gil, Gil._ They'd spent so much time with each other that they'd practically moved in together. He’d gotten used to waking up and having Gil stretched out next to him, going to events with Gil on his arm, eating his meals with Gil across the table, fucking Gil and being fucked by Gil and falling into blissful sleep with Gil in his arms. It fucking sucks to have that suddenly taken away. He feels bereft, like something of him is missing. Empty.

“Spend more time with us,” Hercules suggests, “Or, I don't know, adopt a cat or something.”

John furrows his brows together, peering up at him through the tangle of curls that are starting to go crusty from the beer spilled over them.

“You want me to adopt a cat to replace fucking my boyfriend?”

Hercules rolls his eyes. “Don't be crass,” he chides. “I’m saying that being responsible for something, looking after something, could help distract you from Gil not being here. Having some company around that’s affectionate and here for you might help. It doesn't have to be a cat, it could be a lizard or something.”

John tilts his head. “Are lizards affectionate?” he asks.

“I fear we are straying from the point,” Hercules sighs heavily. “Come on, it's late and you're still a bit drunk. I’m gonna stay here tonight and check you wake up okay in the morning, alright? Let's get you showered so you don't stink up the whole place.”

Hercules herds him into the bathroom, strips him, gives in fairly easily when John whines and washes his hair for him. He scrubs John down with a ridiculously fluffy towel, because Hercules only deigns to have the very best fabric touch his skin, and scrunches John’s hair carefully so that it doesn't frizz.

John insists that Hercules joins him in the bed. It's nice to have someone there, even though Herc’s bulk is so different from Gil’s lean frame; the warmth and comfort he gets from sharing a bed with another person helps ease the ache in his heart.

It's just gone two A.M. and John calculates that it's around eight A.M. in France. He takes a risk and slides out his phone, turning down the brightness so it doesn't wake up Hercules, and texts Gil, _Good morning._

Gil texts back almost instantly, and relief blooms in John’s chest.

_Bonjour, Jacky. It is still night for you, yes? You should be sleeping my love._

John stares at the _my love_ for a long time. The skin on his split knuckles pulls unpleasantly as he moves his fingers to type but it's worth it.

 _I miss you too much to sleep,_ he sends.

_I understand. My bed feels empty without you. I long for you most ardently._

John snorts, thinking about how much Gil reminds him of a cheesy Mr. Darcy sometimes. Gil’s hopelessly romantic, immediately open and honest with anyone who he thinks deserves his heart, whereas John gets squirmy and tight lipped when it comes to verbalising his emotions. He simply wasn't brought up that way, to speak of matters of the heart, and he remembers being a teenager and wanting to scream that he liked boys, only to be silenced by his own reluctance and fear to share the thoughts of his heart.

 _Hercules is filling my bed very nicely right now_ , he sends and snaps a picture of Hercules passed out open mouthed on his pillow, his giant shoulders taking up all the space and his arm pinning John’s torso down.

_What is this betrayal_

_[stayaway.jpg]_

John opens the attachment and is greeted with a picture of Gil in the pale French morning light, his hair pulled back and his glasses on, unblended contour powder still on his cheeks. He’s flipping off the camera and looking very unimpressed. John giggles, checks that Hercules isn't waking up, and sends another picture, this time of himself grinning at the camera.

Gil doesn't respond for a while, even though John can see he's read the message. He taps his fingers on his sternum, feeling hollow, chewing on the inside of his lip. It always makes him anxious when Gil doesn't respond right away; is he doing something else? Has he lost interest in the conversation? Is he making John wait, for some reason?

His phone lights up and he scrambles to unlock it.

_I see the bruise around your eye. This pains me, my John, what is going on?_

John instantly curses himself for not bothering to check the picture before he sent it. Contrary to what he's sure is popular belief, he doesn't actually want to worry his boyfriend. Hitting people and getting hit is for _himself,_ something that should only affect himself, but he can see how the web of relationships he's built around himself trembles and shivers whenever he gets hurt, whenever he does something stupid, each strand attached to a particular person who worries about him. Gil worries the most, he knows this logically, because he is the furthest away and the least equipped to help John. He can't patch up John’s hurts like Hercules and Alexander can, he can’t even hold his hand.

 _I’m sorry,_ he texts slowly, _I’m working on it, I promise._

_I do not understand why you do this to yourself…_

John sucks in a breath, the cold air making the small abrasions to his gums sting. He feels stupid now, feels like searching out a beating was a mistake, even though at the time it felt like the perfect solution.

 _I just miss you so much_ , he texts honestly.

_I am the reason you do this?_

John immediately backtracks. _Fuck no, no no no, no Gil baby no, I do it because I’m stupid,_ he sends. Gil is silent on the other side of the connection; John can see that he's read it but isn't typing anything. He swallows.

 _I’m trying to figure out how to cope without you here,_ he adds. _I’ll stop this,_  he sends, and doesn't write _I promise_ because he knows he'll break it. _I’m trying_ , he finishes.

_I care about you very deeply, I could not bear it if something happen and I am not there._

_Please take care, Jack_

John reads his texts over and over again, watching the three little dots appear and disappear a number of times. Clearly Gil wants to say something. John wonders what he wants to say, what's stopping him from saying it.

_Go to sleep, my love, I will call you later in the day._

John deflates, unaware that he was tensed up in the first place. _Okay,_ he sends back, _I hope you have a day that's as lovely as you,_ and immediately sticks his phone under the pillow and squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn't often say sappy stuff like that and he can't bring himself to see if Gil sends anything back. His cheeks are burning enough already.

He turns over as much as he can under Hercules’ arm and gazes at his friend’s face. It's lax in sleep, soft and gentle, not so different to his every day expression. Hercules radiates comfort, a soothing presence that's very welcome in John’s life, but he's also a massive party goer and will stand on tables and sing Taylor Swift at the top of his lungs if the moment calls for it.

He thinks about Hercules’ suggestion earlier, about how he should get a cat. John likes animals, grew up grooming the horses on the farm that bucked his estate, likes to pet the dogs he sees in the park. He is lonely. A pet could… Help that, but not cure it. It would probably work better than getting his teeth smashed in, he reasons.

Which is how he finds himself inside his local pet shelter the next afternoon he has free, three weeks after Gil went back to France. He’s not told Gil what he's planning, mainly because he doesn't even know if it's going to work out, but a little bit of him wants to keep it as a surprise. When Gil comes back, when he moves to America for good like he's said he dreams of doing, John will be waiting for him. In the meantime, he'll have this, if he can find the right cat.

He'd settled on a cat, eventually. While dogs are incredibly rewarding affection wise, cats are far more low maintenance, less demanding, and equally as affectionate in their own way. John doesn't have time for a dog, so a cat it is. He makes it clear to the lady showing him around that he doesn't want a kitten, he wants an older cat, one that's mellowed out already and John doesn't have to put much thought into. He feels kind of bad when he thinks of it like that, but then he imagines the hassle of bringing a kitten to his classes, of stopping the little thing from clambering all over his artwork and tearing up the furniture. Getting an older cat makes sense, when put like that.

The lady, Sarah, looks at him in relief when he tells her this.

“Lots of folks come in here wanting kittens,” she explains, “Not many people want the older cats, especially since a lot of them are disabled in some way.”

John nods, following her. He doesn't really care if his cat has four legs or not, he just wants one that's not going to chew his face off.

“Here,” she says, gesturing to rows of cages. “These are our senior citizens, as we like to call them. Some were abandoned and others were rescued, some of them were just strays we took in, it's all in the info packets on the side of their cages. Take your time, get to know them, I’ll be back soon,” she smiles at him encouragingly and his lips twitch up in response.

He doesn't really know where to start. How does one choose a single pet to take home, over all the other ones? There's at least fifteen cats here, some yowling and others sleeping, a few watching him with big eyes.

He starts at the front of the room and works his way towards the back, reading the info packets and eyeing up the cats as he goes. He feels weird doing this, like he's judging them for something but he doesn't know what. He’s feeling a bit anxious by the time Sarah returns, peering into a cage of a tabby cat named Timmy who has curled up in the farthest corner from John and is hissing.

“You okay there?” she asks, polite, and John jumps.

“Uh,” he says eloquently, and then just doesn't continue.

She hums. “It can be a bit overwhelming, all of them at once. You're more than welcome to come back a few times, bring some friends, get to know the cats more.”

John swallows. Her eyes are kind and understanding. He nods rapidly.

“Coming back, yeah, that sounds good,” he says sheepishly, feeling a little dumb.

He wraps his arms around himself, looks back at Timmy. He's still showing his fangs a little bit so John hastily steps away, smiling nervously at Sarah, who places a hand on his elbow to guide him out.

He comes back armed with Alexander and Eliza, Alexander hopping about like a ten year old on a sugar rush and Eliza smiling after him, a little besotted. John feels kind of bad for her, but he knows Eliza well enough to know that if she really wanted him then she'd go and get him. Alexander grabs both their hands and natters away as they pass the rabbits, which he insists on calling ‘bunnies’, and all but drags them towards the older cats like he's been here a thousand times before.

“What about this one?” he asks jovially, sticking his fingers between the mesh and yelping, yanking himself backwards, almost immediately. John looks over his shoulder and spots Timmy skulking in the back corner, prowling, hissing and spitting.

“I already ruled him out,” John says, and Alexander mutters, “Devil cat,” and moves on quickly.

Eliza crosses off one called Oscar, stating that a skin condition would take up a lot of time looking after, and John agrees. Alexander rules out a few based on reasons John can't really parse, but he supposes his cat is going to spend a lot of time around his friends, Alexander especially, and it's crucial that they all get along.

“What about this one,” Alexander says excitedly. “Ooh, fluffy,” he coos in a silly voice, beckoning John over so he can see the massive white ball of fur stretched out along one side of the cage.

“Fur _everywhere,”_ Eliza says on her way passed and John has to agree. He claps Alexander on the shoulder in commiseration and snorts when Alexander turns the big brown puppy eyes on him.

“But, but, it's so fluffy.”

“No,” John says patiently, and steers him away.

“Have you seen this one?” Eliza calls and John wanders over to her. She's crouched down in front of a cage, a sleek dark grey cat sitting prettily for her and flicking its ears.

John thumbs through the info packet and shoots Eliza a funny look.

“Mrs. Buttersworth?” he repeats incredulously, looking between the cat, the papers, and Eliza in befuddlement.

Eliza shrugs. “Unfortunate name, I know, but she's deaf, it's not like she's going to hear it.”

They both turn to look back at the cat. Mrs. Buttersworth licks her paw and blinks at them with big blue eyes. John shares another look with Eliza and sticks his fingers through the bars, palm up, in offering. Mrs. Buttersworth flicks her ears and eyes him warily, before slinking forward and butting his hand with her head. She lets out a small meow when he scritches the top of her head and John smiles.

“What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” he murmurs, remembering Gil whispering that in his ear the first time they'd met. John had thought it charming and mysterious at the time, but Gil had later admitted it was simply because he wasn't quite able to wrap his tongue around his long string of names whilst that intoxicated.

Alexander’s found his way to them by now, pouting at having to leave the fluffy cat behind, but he tilts his head in consideration as John continues to scratch the cat’s head.

“What a ridiculous name,” he announces. “I love it.”

And that's that. John takes Mrs. Buttersworth home that day, filling out paperwork and paying for her, murmuring to her in the cab ride home. She seems trepidous when he lets her into the apartment, placing the cage on the floor and letting her wander out of her own accord, have a nice sniff around. She rubs herself all over the bottom of the sofa, meowing as she goes, and John watches her curiously.

He feels silly calling her Mrs. Buttersworth, settles on Butter instead, because of the way she hits her head against his open palm and, to his amusement, the way she slips and slides all over the slick wooden floor of his kitchen. She's obviously not used to walking on that kind of surface and he takes a quick snapchat video of her with her legs spread in different directions on the floor, looking slightly distressed, before he takes pity on her and scoops her up.

He finds himself talking to her, even though she can't hear him. It’s dumb, because it's not like she could understand him even if both her ears worked, but he feels a little relieved knowing she can't hear him ramble on and on. He shows her around the apartment, tempted to do the “this is not your room” spiel from Turner and Hooch but she just looks balefully at him when he attempts it and he realises he's just going to let her chill wherever the hell she wants.

Which, it turns out to be, is the welcome mat on the inside of his front door. She stretches out across it and kneads her paws into the bristles, digging her claws in and unsticking them over and over. John learns to be very careful every time he opens his door lest he walk right on top of her, until Hercules suggests dryly that he just move the welcome mat.

He’s had her for a week and is slowly getting used to living with her. It's nice, Hercules wasn't wrong. He doesn't feel quite as lonely. And, on top of that, he now feels guilty if he entertains the idea of going out to get trashed and leaving her alone in the apartment.

He feeds her while he's still bleary eyed in the early morning, not yet had his first cup of coffee, and leaves her to it while he showers, because he's learned that she doesn't like it if he watches her eat. She yowls and scratches at the bathroom door if he spends too long in there, and he serenades her with some truly stellar vocals even though she can't hear.

He’s pretty sure she just follows the sun’s path across the floor while he's away, so he leaves all the curtains open to let the light in so she can soak it all up. She's always languid and slow when he returns from his classes, and she comes and sits in his lap and flicks her ears when she wants attention. He lavishes her with it, running his palms down her spine. He likes it when he can feel, rather than hear, the reverberations of her purrs, running up his fingertips and into his knuckles and wrist bones.

Gil’s reaction to Butter was… Interesting. He’d seen the snapchat John so stupidly uploaded in his excitement, even though he wanted to keep it as a surprise from Gil, just for a little bit. Wanted to show him he’s doing okay, he’s looking after himself, he’s got a few things, now, that make him happy.

_Who’s cat is that and why is it in your kitchen?_

_Uhhhhhhh,_ John had sent back. _She’s mine????? I adopted her_.

John had to wait several minutes, biting his lip and tapping his foot, watching Butter pick her way carefully across the living room floor. He felt like maybe he’d done something wrong, not consulting Gil about getting a pet. Obviously, they don’t live together, there’s an entire ocean spanning between them, but looking back it seems like a thing someone in a committed relationship would mention to their partner.

 _Skype me immediately,_ Gil sent, and John had scrambled for the laptop.

Gil looked sleepy, half-heartedly spearing at leaves in his salad and transferring them to his mouth, rubbing his eyes. It was mid-afternoon John’s time, which meant it was nearly midnight Gil’s time, and John’s heart had hurt a little looking at him, all his hair pulled back and his skin fresh and shiny, his dark eyes heavy, looking like he wanted to curl up and pass out. John wanted to be there, wanted to hold him, rub his palm down Gil’s back while his breath evened out into sleep.

“You got a cat,” Gil said flatly, breaking the spell of John’s enamour somewhat.

“Uh,” he’d said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess?”

“You guess,” Gil repeats. “Either you have a cat or not, John.”

“I do have a cat, I’ll go get her, hold on,” he’d mumbled, and rushed off to find Butter. She was in the bathroom, he discovered, looking surprisingly comfortable while squished into the sink basin.

“Okay, okay,” he whispered to her, “This is important, this is my boyfriend, the love of my life, even though I haven’t told him yet, so it’s detrimental to our relationship that you two get along,” he kept talking to her as he carried her through to the living room, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him. She had blinked at him and let him carry her, making herself comfortable in his lap once he finally sat back down.

“This is Butter,” he’d said, and watched Gil watch her as she kneaded her paws into his thighs, turning around over and over in circles until she flopped onto his lap. Gil munched on his salad and stared at her, tilting his head, watching her flick her ears when John started scratching between them.

“She seems nice,” Gil said, and John had let out a breath of relief.

“She is, she’s pretty chill, she just wanders about and sleeps mostly. It’s nice, having her around. She’s nice to come home to.”

Gil had narrowed his eyes at him. “Is that why you got her, so you could have someone to come home to?”

John had stared at his lap rather than looking at Gil, petting Butter’s spine over and over. Another moment had creeped upon him where he could look Gil in the eye and tell him that he loved him, open up his heart and let his rawest emotions spill out, and yet again he shrank away from the opportunity like a wilting flower.

“I guess I’m lonely,” he’d mumbled, focusing on the silken feel of Butter’s fur under his hands rather than on Gil’s reaction.

Gil made a sound, though, a small broken thing through the tinny speakers of John’s laptop. John tensed up, feeling vulnerable, feeling scared, and Gil had breathed, “ _Oh, Jack,_ ” and he’d found himself suddenly blinking away tears.

“I miss you so much, _mon coeur,_ believe in me,” Gil had said. John had flicked his eyes up and Gil had looked so sad, so frustrated, his fingers hovering in the air as if he was going to touch the screen, reach through and touch John.

John dropped his eyes. “I miss you too,” he’d managed, choked, and Gil had made another sad noise.

It’s weird, this physical ache in his chest when he thinks about Gil, about how far away he is, about how he can’t reach out and touch him, about how there’s another couple of months to go until they’re in the same country again. It makes him hurt, it makes him miserable, it makes him blink back tears and heave deep breaths and curl his fingers into his palms. He can’t fathom how people survived before mobile phones and emails and Skype, relying on letters, on ships that could sink, waiting for months for replies that may never come. He reads Gil’s texts, keeps up with his Twitter and Instagram and snapchat, smiles at him weakly over Skype, pets Butter in lieu of reaching out and touching him.

It sucks, but it’s just a few more months, a few more weeks, a few more days. He gets a calendar and crosses off every day until his flight to France. He wakes up hard and gasping and fists himself alone in bed until he comes, sticky on his fingers, and peers blearily at the clock, trying to figure out if Gil would be awake if John called him. He buys a punching bag and hangs it up in the spare room, sweats and grunts and probably scares Butter a little, flexing his fingers after. He gets her some strange cat arial thing that she can climb on, but she doesn’t seem overly bothered by it, still loves to push her paws into the bristles on the welcome mat more than anything. He steps over her and smiles at her and pets her head and back and tail, plays with her paws, rubs her ears, feeds her and talks to her and takes her out onto the balcony once he’s sure she won’t run away and get lost.

It’s nice, having her. He’s become terribly endeared towards her, to the point where it’s kind of sappy. Coming home to someone who loves him, even if she’s a cat and not a real person, makes his heart feel a little less cold. She’s sweet and winds around his feet and barely ever yawns when he talks to her. She’s taken to very carefully picking her way across the floor of his spare room, probably because she remembers that he often leaves his paintings on the floor to dry and if she walks all over them she’ll get her paws wet, ruin his paintings, and cover the rest of the apartment with little prints too. It’s incredibly charming, the way she maps her way carefully across the room, checking her paws every now and then for paint.

He paints a lot, while Gil’s gone. Maybe he’s trying to fill the time up or maybe his aching heart is a good motivator for art, but either way his paintings begin to stack up around the apartment. He doodles in class, mostly things he can see, pencil cases and paintbrushes and the backs of people’s heads, but sometimes he’ll sit down and draw Gil, trying to remember his face in his mind rather than look at a photo. He scribbles something on a small scrap of paper one day, a miniature bust of Gil in profile, hair pulled back and cheeks puffed up as he grins, his eyes crinkled. He rubs his finger over the edge of it, staring at it, until he he gets a paper cut, and then he carefully pries off his phone case and slips it in underneath, alongside his spare ten dollar note. Some part of him wants to carry it around with him, sentimental and silly, but he doesn’t want it to be seen. His pining was bad enough for Hercules to suggest he adopt a cat in the first place, he doesn’t want to worry his friends even more.

But that’s what he’s doing; pining. Waiting. Longing. For Gil and the long line of his body, the taste of his mouth, his big hands and soft skin and tightly curled hair. He wants to be able to kiss Gil’s smile again, he wants to hold his hips down and fuck him into the mattress, he wants to curl himself up next to his body and revel in his heat.

They Skype and call and text almost constantly, though it’s usually Gil who initiates things. John is absurdly aware of the time difference, those six hours that Gil is ahead of him prickle along his skin, and he doesn’t want to bother him if he’s doing something or seeing someone or sleeping. Gil’s Instagram page used to be filled with pictures and videos of he and John and all their friends, but mostly the two of them together, cheeks smushed together for a selfie, sneaky pictures of John as he slept or ate or painted, standing on the subway, dressed up for dates out or dressed down for nights in, close ups of his freckles and eyes and smile. Now, though, it’s filled with people John only vaguely knows, or doesn’t know at all; he has to scroll down a long way to find any sign of himself.

It makes something grow in his chest, but not in the way things usually grow and fill space. This takes _away_ space, creates a yawning pit that’s filled with how much he misses Gil, and he can’t help but feel a little hopeless. The calendar tells him it’s only another month until he goes to France to see him, but it’s starting to feel like he simply never will. He stays in bed and Butter crawls up on his chest and makes herself comfortable and he breathes around her weight, staring at the blank screen of his phone.

He could make an effort, he’s sure, he could call Gil, but he doesn’t want to be _that_ kind of clingy boyfriend. He doesn’t want to encroach on Gil’s new friendships, doesn’t want to call in the middle of class and interrupt, doesn’t want to wake Gil up in the middle of the night and demand he talk to him.

Gil tilts his head and narrows his eyes shrewdly one night over Skype, when John knows he should be asleep instead of up talking to him, but he’s too lonely and achey to end their conversation. He drinks in as much of Gil’s face as he can; he fears he’s beginning to forget how he moves, the lithe lilt of his walk, the cock of his hips, the way his fingers travel through the air as he gesticulates.

“You do not look well,” Gil says, enough worry in his voice to make John’s eyebrows quirk.

“I miss you,” is all he says in response.

“Enough to look so miserable?”

“I miss you a lot,” John amends.

Gil frowns, swallows, and looks to the side. He blinks a few times and looks back, making eye contact with John for a moment before dropping his eyes again.

“You say you miss me, and yet you do not call me.” He swallows again. “You do not text me, or email me, or send me letter. No facetime or Skype. You do not talk unless I talk first. You miss me, really?”

John opens his mouth in a little bit of shock. He feels guilty, suddenly. He’d not thought of how his reluctance to shoulder into Gil’s life in France could come off as a reluctance to talk to him entirely.

“Of course I miss you, Gil, I…” he starts desperately, sitting up from where he had been lounging on the couch and repositioning his laptop so Gil can see his earnestness. “I miss you so much, it hurts, it hurts so much.”

Gil blinks at him, eyes wet and shining through the computer screen. “Why no call?”

“I didn’t want to wake you up in the middle of the night, I didn’t want to interrupt you and your new friends, I…,” he trails off and lifts his fingers up to the screen, like he can reach through and touch Gil, comfort him. A tear slips down Gil’s cheek as he watches and Gil rubs it away quickly, scrubbing over his eyes with his palms violently to stop any more from falling.

“ _Baby,”_ John says, pained, wishing fervently he could be there, right next to him, to hold him.

“I am acting stupid,” Gil sniffs, wrapping his arms around himself tightly. “I know you love me, you miss me, I know this. Stupid.”

“It’s not, Gil, baby, it’s my fault, I’m so sorry I’ve made you feel like this. You should’ve told me, you should’ve said- But then again, I should’ve told you I felt like there wasn’t space for me in your life anymore,” he mutters.

“Space? For you? John, I have miles. I have huge craters waiting to be filled with you,” Gil declares and John snorts, giggling, because that’s definitely an innuendo, and Gil grins back at him.

“I just wish I was there with you,” he says quietly after a while and Gil sighs, heavy.

“One month,” he says, holding up a single finger.

John echoes him, holding up a finger of his own, and Gil smiles wobbly and ekes a promise out of him to call more often which John readily agrees to.

It’s not until later that he realises Gil said that he knows John loves him. He’s never said it out loud, never those three words, and he wants to, desperately. There’s still one month to go before he sees Gil again, and he wants to say it in person, wants to say it against Gil’s lips and feel him smile, doesn’t want it to be over the telephone with thousands of miles between them.

When Gil says it back, _if_ Gil says it back, he wants to be able to immediately kiss him and peel off all his clothes, push him down and make him moan only John’s name and those three words.

He thinks about it, late at night, and calls Gil, listens to his voice telling him exactly how to twist his wrist, how hard or soft, fast or slow to go, waits and waits and waits until Gil tells him he can come, and then spills over his fingers with strangled gasps and whimpers. Gil whispers in his ear and John closes his eyes and imagines saying those words over and over and hearing Gil say them back.

It’s only one month, he tells himself. Just one month.

.

It’s the slowest fucking month of John’s life, but he gets through it; _they_ get through it. He calls at lunch every single day, and Gil tells him about what happened to him that day while he takes off his makeup, or alternatively as he puts it on, if he’s about to go out with friends. John’s taken to telling him about his dreams, because he doesn’t have much else to say. Most of his day consists of fucking around with art supplies, playing with Butter, thinking about Gil, seeing Alexander and Hercules, missing Gil, playing with Butter some more, and then finally jerking off to thoughts of Gil.

He feels less empty, now that they’re more or less on the same page. He tries his hardest to remember the names of the people Gil hangs out with now, texts him at random intervals detailing the random thoughts that flit through his brain, sends him pictures of Butter, of his bed with mussed sheets, of flowers and dogs and occasionally his own face. Gil’s always so fucking delighted to receive pictures, even more so when they’re selfies that John takes, even when they’re terrible. He excitedly posts one to Instagram, where John’s looking shy and blushing a little, the sun hitting his skin and lighting up all his freckles. His hair is frizzing around his head and he’s wearing a massive coat with a puffy hood that swallows half the background, and he looks kind of cold but he’s smiling. Gil captions it with all the emoji hearts that are possible and a countdown of how many days there are until John arrives in France.

He keeps doing it, for every picture he posts to Instagram, and _20 days to go,_ turns into _14 days to go,_ and then _10 days to go,_ until they’re down to single digits and John’s almost vibrating out of his skin with impatience. He’s excited and worried and scared all at the same time. He stares at the ceiling in the dark after he’s said good night to Gil and Gil’s said good morning and wonders if it’ll be the same. He chews his nails down until they sting and whistles for Butter until he realises she can’t hear him and gets up to find her himself.

He spends a lot of nights with her on the bed, one hand curled into her fur, listening to her purr and stretch. Sometimes she flops herself onto his chest and he pretends it’s Gil for half a second, remembering all the times Gil would press his ear against John’s hot sweaty skin after a round of energetic sex and tell him he liked listening to his heart slow down to match his own.

At _5 days to go_ he makes arrangements for Butter to stay with Alexander, slightly wary but trusting his friend’s ability to keep his cat alive for two weeks. He prints out a set of instructions for Alexander, Butter’s likes and dislikes, her routines, her food intake, and Alexander looks at him like he’s crazy when he hands it over. He knows the cat food he buys her is expensive so he stocks up in advance and dumps it all at Alexander’s place so his friend doesn’t have to empty his pockets.

He spends as much time with her as he can, before he leaves. He’s worried she’ll think he’s abandoned her, so he tells her over and over that he’s coming back, that he’ll be away for a little while but Alexander will look after her, that one day another man will be in her life that’ll look after her too. He’s told her all about Gil, has petted her fur while crying late at night because he missing him had turned just this side of too raw, has chatted to her randomly through the day whenever he’d look at something and it’d remind him of Gil. Maybe it’s the fact that he knows she can’t hear him that makes his tongue so loose. She blinks up at him with her big eyes and all his secrets spill out.

He takes himself down to the clinic to get checked, the day before he goes. It seems a bit stupid, to him, because it’s not like he’s slept with anyone else while Gil’s been away, and he hopes to god that Gil hasn’t touched anyone else either, but Gil insists.

John’s standing in his kitchen in his sweatpants in the morning, still a little bleary eyed after downing his coffee, and Gil’s texting him in class when he should be paying attention.

 _I know we don’t need to but I want to be safe,_ Gil texts him, and John rolls his eyes a little.

 _neither of us has slept with anyone else,_ he sends back and Gil responds with _, heaven knows what you could have picked up from just being in that city…_ John takes a moment to snort but Gil texts him again before he can formulate a response.

 _I want to fuck you raw when you get here, I want to fill you up and plug it in and make you walk around all day_ , and then, _We’ll go to the eiffel tower and I’ll still be inside you._

John chokes on thin air, reaches out to grip the kitchen counter because his knees have gone a little weak. There’s little dots on his phone screen that tell him Gil’s typing again and he sucks in a breath and wonders, dizzy, what he’ll say next.

 _I want you to come in me and eat it out and then come in me again,_ he sends, _over and over until I’m sloppy and you can’t come anymore._

John’s sporting a semi in his sweatpants. _Okay, okay, i’ll go,_ he sends quickly, and Gil immediately sends back, _Good boy._ John whimpers, cupping his dick, and then Gil’s calling him. The speed at which he scrambles to answer is impressive, honestly, but he’s slightly more concerned about how Gil’s breathing in his ear and calling him _baby._

“Are you hard? Did that get you hard, hm, baby?” he asks, hushed, and John moans a little.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” he asks breathily instead of answering because, duh, of course he’s hard, what does Gil expect after sending texts like that?

“Not anymore,” Gil says vaguely and John chokes on a laugh.

“Did you get up and leave for a booty call?”

“Do you want me to hang up?” he replies archly and John whimpers, immediately apologises, and Gil hums thoughtfully. “I thought so. Are you going to touch yourself? Pull yourself off for me?”

John bites his lip and slides his hands into his sweatpants to where his cock is chubbing up against his thigh. Gil must be able to tell he’s got his hands on himself from the way that he moans and he tuts down the phone, disappointment clear in his tone.

“I didn’t say you could touch yourself yet. What are you wearing?”

John mumbles, “Just sweatpants,” down the phone, retracting his hand regretfully, and Gil makes a considering noise.

“I want you to get yourself nice and wet for me. I want you to stain your clothes. I want you to send me a picture.”

John tilts his head back and rubs his thumb along the thick line of his cock where it’s pressing up against the fabric, obedient. He cups the palm of his hand over his balls and squeezes, making his dick twitch and jump, and he can feel a blurt of precum leak out of the tip. He bites his lip and moans and Gil encourages him down the phone, whispers praise and filth, and John rubs and grinds and strokes until he’s fattened to full hardness and the tip of his cock is turning the material of his sweatpants dark with his wetness.

“Gil, I’m wet, can I-”

“Take a picture,” Gil says calmly, “No, take a video. I want to see you, come on baby boy. Quickly,” and John fumbles, swiping shaky fingers across his phone screen until he can pull up the camera app and snap a quick video to send.

It’s only about four seconds long and of John’s hand cradling his balls while his thumb rubs a line up where he knows a thick vein runs at the base of his length, but it’s enough to make his cock twitch in his pants, and caught on camera it doesn’t look half bad. The top of his sweatpants is damp and his cock looks fat, straining against the material, and he hopes Gil enjoys the little show. He sends it quickly and lifts his phone back to his ear just in time to hear the ding of Gil receiving it on the other end and his groan as he watches it.

“That’s so good, Jack, you’re doing so good,” he whispers and John squeezes his cock and firmly. “You can touch yourself now, nice and slow, I want to hear every second of it.”

John’s breath hitches as he finally, _finally,_ slips his hand under his waistband and grips the thickness underneath. He’s hot and hard, pulsing, so ready to come, but he takes it slow like Gil’s asked and doesn’t bother to hide the noises he’s making. Usually he’s a little shy, at least until Gil fucks it out of him, but he’s desperately aware that Gil’s only got sound to go on right now and so he hams it up a little, whining and moaning into the phone, making sure he gathers up all the wetness at his head and jacks himself with tight fingers, slow enough that Gil can hear the slick noise it makes.

He hears the snick of something opening and closing, and then Gil’s groaning in what sounds like relief and John can hear an echo of his own wet movements.

“Are you,” he gasps, “Are you jerking off right now?”

“Of course I am,” Gil says, sounding slightly offended. “You expect me be able to resist your moans, your little sighs? When I know that you are touching yourself? You believe me to be much stronger than I am; I am weak for you, down to my very bones.”

John blushes, ridiculously charmed by Gil’s little speech, before his brain kicks back into gear.

“Please tell me you aren’t jerking off at the university.”

“Of course not, I walked home.”

“You walked-!” John squeaks, hand stilling on his cock. “While talking to me? Like that? What if people heard you?”

“They probably did,” Gil says patiently. John can almost hear the careless shrug he must be doing right now. “But it doesn’t matter, I’ll probably never see them again. You were making such pretty noises, I was very tempted to put you on speaker and let the whole street hear.”

John gapes, speechless for a moment, but his cock throbs, betraying him.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” Gil whispers. John’s breath hitches, eyes going wide. His shaking fingers squeeze the head of his cock and swipe through the obscene amount of precum gathered there to spread it down his length.

“There’s a big window in my room. When you get here, I’ll fuck you against the glass. The whole of Paris will be able to see you moan on my cock,” Gil continues, voice low, and John’s ass clenches around nothing, caught up in imagining it.

“Gil,” he gasps, desperate. Gil groans back, whispers, _That’s it, Jack,_ and, _Good boy, Jack,_ and it’s all John can do to stop himself from coming without permission.

“Please,” he begs and Gil makes a bitten off noise, strangled.

“You’re doing so good, so good for me,” he says, breathy. “You’d be so tight around my cock, wouldn’t you, Jacky? I bet you haven’t had anything as big as me in months, I bet you’re gagging for it. Can you wait for me, for tomorrow?”

John groans, twisting his wrist. He can’t wait, he really can’t, Gil is _killing_ him. It’s too much, and his next words slip out before he can stop himself.

“ _Please, papa,_ ” he sobs and Gil groans loud and long over the phone, his breath hitching hard.

“ _Yes,_ ” he hisses and John can really hear him jerking himself off fast. He speeds his hand up to match, panting. “Yes, baby boy, my Jack, come for me. Come for me, now, John.”

With permission finally granted, John’s entire body seizes up, his toes curling against the floor, his hand gripping the phone so hard he’s surprised it hasn’t cracked yet. His hand flies over his cock, so fucking close to the edge. His orgasm knocks the wind out of him and he makes an embarrassingly high whining noise, his heart pounding, as hot spurts dribble all over his fingers. His body tingles as he pulls himself through it, listening to Gil on the other end of the phone, babbling frantic sounding French until a punched out groan tells John he’s come too.

He slumps back into the counter, spent. He and Gil breathe heavily down the phone for a while, trying to slow their heartbeats, until Gil makes a pleased sounding humming noise on the other end.

“Tastes good,” he murmurs. “I would like to feed it to you,” and John whimpers, his cock twitching painfully, thinking about licking Gil’s come off his fingers.

“Tomorrow,” he whispers, voice hoarse.

“I’m going to fuck you raw, my love,” Gil says sweetly. “Get yourself checked for me, I need to go back to class.”

John swears under his breath and hangs up. Breathing slowly, he closes his eyes and tips his head back, basking in the warm fuzz of his afterglow, and when he opens them again Butter is sitting patiently on the floor at his feet, staring up at him.

He yelps, covering himself with his hands. “Please God, tell me you didn’t see any of that,” he says, strangled, but Butter just continues staring up at him. He sighs and looks at the clock. It’s her feeding time, it’s no wonder that she looks so expectant.

He washes his hands and tucks his cock back into his damp sweatpants, wincing, and then goes through the motions of emptying Butter’s food into her bowl and stripping for his shower. The water beats down on him, hot, soothing any tension that wasn’t worked out of him by his orgasm. He blinks at the wall, watching drops of water run paths down the tiles, thinking about tomorrow. Getting up early, seven hours in the air, and then he’ll be in Paris. He’ll be with Gil.

The clinic tells him he’s clean, of course. He texts the result to Gil and receives a combination of the eggplant emoji, peach, and then the water droplets. He rolls his eyes but sends back two little heart emojis, because he’s feeling pretty happy right now.

He makes an extra stop on the way home, feeling impulsive. The shop is discreet, and expensive, and John stutters and blushes through the advice from the sales assistant and tries on several options, before walking out with a bag containing two pairs of panties, some stockings, and a matching garter belt. Gil will probably cream himself, John thinks, and bites his lip in excitement.

He goes home and flops all over the sofa. Butter comes and perches herself on his stomach and he plays with her tail and paws until she peels open an eye to glare at him. Alexander and Hercules come over, two six packs of beer and the Spiderman movies on DVD to occupy him before he leaves. He’s jittery, watching the clock above the TV count down the hours, and he declines to drink anything for fear that he’ll fall asleep and miss his flight. Alexander’s brought a little plastic cage to take Butter home in and she prowls around it warily.

“Give Gil a great big French kiss for us, will ya,” Hercules requests, wiping the spill of beer away from his mouth.

John cracks a grin. “Of course,” he replies dutifully.

“Only once you’re done kissing him,” Hercules adds. John scrunches his nose up, watching Hercules shove a handful of Doritos in his mouth and wash it down with beer.

“That might take a while,” he says slowly. He wants to kiss Gil _forever;_ he’ll never be done.

“Aw, how romantic,” Alexander teases. He’s trying to get Butter to play with him, but she’s ignoring him in favour of licking her paws. He gives up and picks his way back to the couch, sitting down heavily and wincing.

John watches him rub the small of his back. “Get your ass wrecked recently, did ya, Hammie?”

Alexander stills, before turning sly eyes on him, smirking. “Not as much as your ass is gonna be wrecked over the next two weeks,” he leers, waggling his eyebrows, and John blushes so hard that both Alexander and Hercules throw their heads back and laugh.

Alexander kisses him on the cheek before he leaves, whispers that he hopes he has fun, and John’s heart does a funny flip-flop in his chest. Alexander is so damn _charming,_ even though he looks like he hasn’t slept in about six years and doesn’t have two pennies to rub together; John can see why someone would fall for him. He almost would have, probably, if Gil hadn’t sat in his lap that night and stolen his heart.

He barely sleeps. His flight is in the middle of the night anyway, and he’s far too paranoid about sleeping through it, so he fucks around on his phone and wishes he had Butter to play with. He’d stuck his fingers through the bars of the little cage Alexander had brought and stroked her pink nose to say goodbye. It had felt a little bit uncanny, watching Alexander take her away and down the steps. It reminded him a little too much of Gil walking away at the airport.

But it’s him leaving this time and he’s coming back. He’s going to miss her so much but it’s only two weeks and he’s coming back. He wonders if she’ll recognise him, once he smells like France and Gil and airplane, but he’s not really sure how a cat’s recall works. He googles it and gets lost down a hole of wikipedia articles until his alarm goes off to say it’s half an hour until his taxi arrives.

He checks his bags, and then checks them again. He has no reason to believe he’ll be wearing many clothes at all on this trip, so he’s packed light. He has plans to be naked with Gil for as long as he can possibly manage in two weeks; screw sightseeing, he wants to suck his boyfriend’s cock.

The time comes. He gets in the taxi, he checks in, he checks his bags in. He goes through security and takes off his belt and gets patted down. He wanders around duty-free before finding a seat at his gate and bouncing his legs up and down. He boards the plane.

He’s sat in First Class, of course, so he gets his own little boxed in seat with a reclining chair. His neighbours are quiet, which he’s grateful for, and the staff are friendly. He gets a diet coke and munches on some snacks, sending a picture of himself to Gil. He doesn’t know if he’s read it or responded because he’s then asked to turn off his phone, so he sticks it in airplane mode and readies himself for take off.

It’s not so bad, as flights go. Seven hours is a long time but he watches a few movies, naps a little too. He can’t ever really sleep on flights, his ass always goes numb in the seat and he can never get comfortable, but they’ve given him earplugs and an eyemask which he takes advantage of. He sits and watches the little picture of their plane blink over the ocean on the map and thinks about Gil, waiting for him, when he lands. Time cannot go fast enough. He fills his information on the little arrivals card and gets up to moisturise his face and brush his teeth, waiting for a few minutes in the queue that’s formed outside the toilet doors. There’s a little baby bouncing on the knee of her mother and he waves at her, watching her stare at him with big eyes until she squeals and twists around in what he assumes is her mother’s lap.

He looks tired, but excited, he thinks as he stares at himself in the mirror. He splashes water on his cheeks and tries to do something with his hair, ending up with it in a bun to keep it out of his eyes and the curls in check. He needs to shower, but he can do that after Gil fucks him, he reasons. No point in getting clean if he knows he’s just going to dirty himself up again straight after.

He finds that he’s feeling _nervous,_ though he doesn’t know why. It’s not like Gil’s gonna take one look at him and go, “No, send him back, I don’t want him.” The thought makes his stomach lurch unpleasantly and he presses his lips together, queasy. Landing is a bit bumpy and he grips the edges of his chair and breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, thinking about what’s waiting for him on the other side, just a few hundred metres away, inside the airport.

He switches his phone off airplane and is immediately bombarded by about eighty thousand texts. Gil’s sent him increasing numbers of exclamation marks until it just gets silly, and then paragraphs upon paragraphs of gushing about how excited he is, how pretty John looks, exactly where he is and how many hours, minutes, there is until John arrives. Hercules and Alexander have sent him texts too, and the Schuyler sisters, bless them, and his heart feels warm.

Gil must have seen that his texts have been read because three little dots appear and two seconds later gets a message that says, _WELCOME TO FRANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_ John giggles, and one of the flight attendants smiles at him, which makes him blush. He may have been staring at his screen with hearts in his eyes, but so what? He’s _finally_ in the same country as his boyfriend, for two whole weeks. Fourteen days. All stretching out in front of him, a glorious three hundred and thirty six hours they have together.

He sends a French flag emoji and Gil sends him about fifteen in response, and then all the heart emojis possible. He grins goofily at the phone, slips it back into his pocket as he thanks the staff and leaves the plane.

It’s hard not to jitter out of his skin for the next half an hour or so. He has to remind himself to calm the fuck down whilst going through customs, as he’s pretty sure he looks like he wants to make a run for it. The dude barely looks at him and stamps his passport and he’s _free._ The slip of paper he’s given says he can stay for a year, if he wanted to, and he feels giddy just looking at it.

He taps his foot impatiently, waiting for his bag to come round on the carousel. He spots it eventually, the gigantic pride flag Alexander had smoothed onto the front of it meaning it’s guaranteed not to be missed, and he bashfully hauls it off, tripping a little on his loose shoelaces, trying not to hurt himself through his own eagerness. If he somehow dies, now, mere minutes away from seeing Gil, he’ll haunt this damn airport for the next thousand years.

 _please tell me you are here or i’ll cry,_ he sends, in an unusually truthful display of emotion, and Gil responds almost immediately, spamming him with one text after the other. _I am waiting for you. Impatiently. Get here soon. Sooner. More quick. Walk faster. Run. Into my arms. Come on John darling I am dying._

John snorts, but walks a little faster. The arrivals gate is just around the corner, he’s seconds away from Gil, and then he’s there and Gil’s there and he drops all his shit and fucking launches himself at him.

Gil catches him easily, around the waist, laughing. John’s shaking like a leaf, his heart thudding painfully against his ribs, and he sobs happily into Gil’s shoulder, taking a deep breath and smelling his perfume, unchanged. Gil puts him down, feet firm on the floor, and John shuffles as close as he can get, lining their bodies up, their knees and hips and chests touching, wrapped up in each other.

“Let me- I want to see your face, John, my John,” Gil murmurs, tugging on his hair, and John goes easily. Blinks with blurry eyes. Gil’s hands come up to frame his cheeks and John sighs, drinking in Gil’s eyes and his nose and his lips, his smile, his hair and his ears and his cheeks, his eyebrows, all his beautifully smooth brown skin. Gil smiles, eyes shiny, and presses their foreheads together. John rubs his hands across Gil’s back, fits them under his shirt, feeling his warm skin.

“I missed you,” he breathes, painfully honest.

“I am right here,” Gil replies, and John kisses him.

It’s fucking wonderful, to press their lips together again, finally. Gil’s lips are plush and soft, and John loves to suck on them until they’re swollen and red. He doesn’t now, though, just parts his lips around a sigh and opens his mouth wider for Gil to slip his tongue in. Oh, how John has missed how he _tastes,_ the wet fleshy inside of his cheeks, the way his tongue glides across John’s teeth. He’s distantly aware that they’re probably making a scene, kissing in a way that’s far too intimate for an airport, but he doesn’t care in the slightest. Gil’s body is firm and warm and _real,_ pressed up against him, and he’s running his hands all over John like he can’t believe he’s here. John feels much the same way, gripping Gil’s hips tight, never wanting to stop touching him.

He goes up on his tiptoes just to be an asshole and force Gil’s head back, just so he can be slightly taller. Gil laughs and pulls away, his eyes scrunched up and his cheeks chubby as he grins, and John stares at him in awe and boops his nose.

“Welcome,” Gil says eventually. He’s wrapped his arms around John’s back and is swaying to a beat unknown to John. _“Bienvenue.”_

Then he confuses the shit out of John by asking, “Where’s Burr?”

“Where’s who?” John echoes, bemused.

Gil blinks at him. “Your cat,” he says, like John’s being the densest person in the world.

“Ohhhhhhhh,” he drags out slowly, “You mean Butter. I thought for a second you meant Aaron Burr.”

“Why on earth would I be talking about Aaron Burr?”

“You said Burr!”

“Yes, as in the French word for butter. _Beurre_. That is what I said.”

John stares at him for a second, and Gil stares back, and John finds himself helpless against the upward tug of his lips. “Why are we talking about this when you could be kissing me,” he murmurs and Gil mumbles, “I do not know,” right against his lips and then they’re kissing again.

They pull apart, eventually, though John doesn’t know how many minutes have ticked by while they were standing there in the middle of the airport, making out. Gil steps away from him and John feels it viscerally, like a velcro strips being torn apart. He gets around to answering Gil’s original question, that he left Butter with Alexander, and Gil pouts and whines that he wanted to meet her, but his disappointment obviously isn’t enough to make him stop grinning.

John picks up his suitcase from where he’d abandoned it on the floor, guiltily relieved that no one had ran off with it or accidentally mistaken it for an unattended bag and caused an airport evacuation. He doubts that he or Gil would have moved anyway, too caught up in each other to notice anything else going on.

Gil tangles their fingers together, walking to grab a taxi, and John stares at his back, memorises the way that he moves, the sway of his hips. Things he’d almost forgotten about while Gil had been away. He just can’t stop looking, can’t tear his eyes away, drunk on Gil’s presence.

It’s hotter in Paris than it was in NYC and he strips off his hoodie and ties it around his waist, leaving him in just his tank top. Gil brushes his fingers across his shoulders, skates across his collarbones, pressing into his freckles. His eyes are dark and he licks his lips so obscenely that John has to look away, for a second, to compose himself.

Gil puts his hand high up on John’s thigh in the taxi, strokes his thumb into the seam of his jeans as he gestures to buildings and sights outside the window as they speed passed. John pays all of zero attention, gazing at Gil instead. His heart feels fluttery and too fast, like it’s trying to leap out of his chest and offer itself to Gil, bloody and still beating. He swallows hard and focuses on the timbre of Gil’s voice, how his accent lilts and rises and drops again. He wants to press his lips to the dip of Gil’s throat and feel the vibrations of his voice buzz into his skin.

They arrive, eventually, at Gil’s accommodation while he’s in Paris for university. Gil pays the taxi driver, thanking him in rapid French, and then wraps an arm around John’s waist to lead him up the steps. His hand is firm, possessive, low on John’s hip. John feels his belly stir and it’s all he can do to stop himself from physically panting.

The ride up in the elevator is long. Gil presses the button for the top floor, which John knows he lives on but wishes he didn’t. If he was on the first floor then they could be fucking by now, he thinks absently. Gil’s snapchats are often of the view from his apartment though, the pretty spread of Pairs touching the horizon, the rooftops cramped together and looking like you could hop between them without effort.

Gil’s fingers don’t shake as he turns the key to open his door. His giddy excitement, his puppyish eagerness and overt joy at seeing John seems to have mellowed, and John can feel how his body settles into his new role, his dominance. His hand is firm on the small of John’s back as he pushes him through the entry first, and the sound of the door closing makes John shiver.

Gil drops his keys in a little dish on the counter, moving John’s suitcase to sit against the wall of the hallway. Then he gently pushes and pulls at John’s body until he’s backed up against the wall, crowded in by Gil. He slumps and surrenders, tilting his head up, and Gil moves his body impossibly closer. John gazes up at him, caught.

“So pretty,” Gil mumbles. He pushes his thumb into John’s mouth but takes it out again before John can do anything more than give it a brief suck. He touches his fingers to John’s jaw, soft and sweet, and draws him in for a kiss.

John abruptly goes boneless, curling his toes up in his shoes, floating. Gil kisses him wetly, deeply, over and over until John feels hot and shivery. Gil slides his hands up under his tank top, ghosting over John’s ribs, making him suck in a sharp breath.

“So good,” he says, “Good boy,” and John bites his lip and closes his eyes and obediently tips his head back so Gil can suck on the freckles down his throat.

There’s a noise somewhere off to the left, and John peels his eyes open when Gil pulls back and blinks at the man that’s seemingly spontaneously appeared in the living room. He waves awkwardly. John’s not entirely sure if he should wave back or not.

“I will, ah, give you some time,” the man nods, and Gil thanks him quickly, not moving from where he’s blatantly boxing John in and holding him captive, hands still under John’s shirt. John’s brain kicks in just enough to recognise the man as Louis, Gil’s roommate, the one who’s dating someone named Pierre and also another someone named Friedrich. John hopes he squirrels himself away with Pierre or Friedrich or both of them for the foreseeable future; the _time_ he needs with Gil would stretch on and on if he had his way.

The door shuts behind Louis and Gil’s on him again, faster, harder. John gasps and rocks onto the balls of his feet, scrabbling at Gil’s shoulders as he sucks particularly hard on his collarbone.

 _“Mon coeur,”_ Gil whispers, and John whimpers and arches his back, trying to look as innocent and angelic as possible. He wants Gil to _wreck_ him.

He’s lead back into Gil’s bedroom, barely catching glimpses of the rest of the apartment. He’s seen it in pictures and videos Gil’s sent, and he supposes he’ll see it if he ever emerges from Gil’s bed, but right now he’s more concerned with the swift manner that Gil’s unbuttoning his shirt, revealing the sprinkle of chest hair John’s so missed, his abs and biceps and the cut of his hips. John licks his lips and trails his fingers up his muscles and Gil lets him until he grows impatient and strips John of his own shirt. They both kick out of their shoes, hearing them thump somewhere across the room, and then Gil’s hands are calmly working at his belt to strip himself of his jeans, leaving him in his boxers. John whines pitifully, and Gil pushes him backwards, backwards, backwards, until he falls onto the warm sheets of Gil’s bed, the mattress soft and welcoming.

Gil drops to his knees, pulling off John’s socks. He creeps his hands up John’s calves, his thighs, parting them and gazing up at John, spread out against the bed. John wriggles and clutches at the bedsheets, knowing that Gil would be incredibly disappointed in him if he undid his own fly and rid himself of his jeans. He bites his lip instead, waits for Gil’s next move.

Fingers dip under his waistband, playing with the elastic of his boxers. Gil fits himself between John’s legs and rubs his face against John’s cock, fattening rapidly in his jeans, just starting to ache. He groans and jolts and Gil pushes his hips down, pulling away and quickly divesting John of both his jeans and boxers, and then gripping his ass and lifting him up the bed so Gil can crawl over him and cover him completely.

He kisses him for so long that John’s world turns dizzy, spinning and unstable. He moans and gasps and whimpers and Gil echoes him right back, peppering kisses all over John’s skin, his lips touching damn near every freckle. John chants his name, over and over, and Gil groans low and deep, from the chest.

They’re both slick with sweat, sliding against each other, rocking into each other’s bodies. John rubs his cock up against Gil’s through the fabric of his boxers, trying to be patient, but his will breaks quickly and he scrabbles to get them down Gil’s ass and legs and off his body entirely. Gil doesn’t seem to mind, hissing when they’re bare cocks touch, grinding them together until they both cry out. John’s thick where Gil is long and his cock drags up and down John’s, from head to balls, and John sinks his teeth into Gil’s shoulder and tries not to come immediately. Gil’s dripping pre everywhere and getting them both wet and slippery, and John knows that neither of them are going to last long.

It’s hot and dirty after that, messy and quick. John bites his fingernails into Gil’s skin and leaves little crescent marks, bumpy when he runs his fingers over them, evidence that he was here. Gil lifts himself off for long enough to fumble the tie out of John’s hair so it’s loose, curling all over the pillows in thick tangles, and he slides his fingers in at the roots and pulls. John’s hips jerk up like they always do when Gil pulls his hair, connecting hard with Gil’s own, and he gasps and gasps and gasps and comes on his belly, sloppy and wet. Gil realigns his cock and rubs it through the come on John’s skin, eyes wide, breathing hard. John watches his muscles flex and shift, watches the sweat drip down his temples and his hair frizz around his head. He wraps his legs around Gil’s waist to urge him on, going limp and letting Gil use him.

“John, John, John,” Gil chants, groans, voice strained. “My beautiful boy, _oh,_ so good for me, I-” and he bites his lip when he comes, dirtying John’s skin even more.

“Gorgeous,” Gil whispers, just managing not to collapse all his weight down on top of John now that they’ve both come. John flushes and averts his eyes, feeling a little too raw under the honesty in Gil’s eyes.

“Shower,” he says back, and Gil sighs and pulls him up by his arms like a rag doll, herding him into the bathtub and letting the cold water sputter over both of them before it warms up. John plasters himself to his body, and Gil embraces him tightly, despite the fact that it makes actually getting clean much harder. John’s content to kiss Gil until their lips get too sore, until their skin prunes up, until they run out of hot water.

Gil rubs him down, scrunching both their hair, and bundles him up into bed. It’s absurdly wonderful to have Gil press up against his back again, to hold him close and tangle their legs and arms together, even though John knows it means Gil will wake up with pins and needles. Gil murmurs into his hair, the thin skin on his shoulders, and John breathes through the feeling of being overwhelmed until he settles on feeling loved. Cherished. Needed.

.

Louis gives them the whole weekend together, and Gil explains that he’ll be taking John down to Haute-Loire where he lives when he’s not in Paris.

“It is in southern France, the prettiest part of France. I will take you down to the Ardèche and we can travel the river. They have beaches there where you can wear no clothes, if you so wish,” he rambles and John grumbles under his breath, saying that he doesn’t want to share Gil with anyone else.

They fuck like rabbits, until an ache settles into the base of John’s spine and he’s sloppy and open almost constantly. Gil can just slide in whenever he likes, and he takes advantage of this fact many times, until John almost passes out. They give his ass a little break after that, making reacquaintance with one another’s dicks. Gil loves to suck John’s cock, loves to stuff as much of it as he can down his throat, and John buries shaking hands in his hair and barely breathes the entire time. He eats Gil out in the middle of the bed, makes him drip all over the sheets, makes him shake and shiver and come on his tongue.

Gil wasn’t lying about the window in his room. It’s tall and arched and beautiful, letting in the sunlight and basking the whole room in yellows and oranges, and Gil coaxes him gently until John’s pressed up against the glass, gripping the grilles with white knuckles fingers as Gil bends him over slightly and pushes the head of his cock in.

They’re high up and it’s the middle of the day, so it’s not likely anyone’s home to see them. John’s heart hammers in his chest anyway, and his cock feels impossibly hard; he’s getting off on this so much that it’s slightly embarrassing.

“Tell me if it is too much,” Gil murmurs in his ear, and then gently presses John’s cheek into the windowpane, withdrawing his cock a few inches and then slamming back in again. John hits the window with a jolt, his breath knocked out of him, but Gil just keeps one hand against the side of John’s head and another holding his hips, setting a brutal rhythm, fast and shallow.

John feels _used,_ splayed out for all the city to see as Gil fucks into him, a hole for Gil to sink his cock into. He moans against the glass, letting his eyes go unfocused, the city blurring, and he pushes his ass back to let Gil know this is doing it for him just fine. Gil groans, snaps his hips up harder, calls him a good boy and tells him to touch himself.

John’s shaky with only one hand holding himself up on the glass, but Gil pulls him back and bends him over further so his weight is more evenly distributed. He doesn’t hesitate to wrap his hand around his cock then, matching Gil’s quick pace, gasping when he sees movement from the building across the way, not as tall but tall enough. If whoever’s over there looked their way, for just a moment, they’d see John being fucked good and hard, and begging for it like a slut.

“Please, please, please,” he breathes and Gil slides his palm from John’s cheek to his hair, gripping it and pulling him upright onto the balls of his feet. He walks him forward, little shuffles of their feet since Gil’s cock is still buried inside him and it’s a little awkward, but it’s not long until John’s entire body is pressed against the windowpane. It’s cold on his skin, smooth, and it feels impossibly fragile, like if Gil exerted any more pressure John would tumble right through it. He squirms back, shrinking into Gil’s body, and Gil is wise enough to know that pressing him right up against the window isn’t a good idea. He lets John lean back into him, but only so far that John’s cock is still touching the glass.

Gil starts moving again, kissing whatever he can reach of John’s shoulder and neck, and he guides John’s hand back to his cock. “Come for me,” he commands softly and John shudders, slipping his fingers over his slit and sliding pre down his cock in a tight grip.

It doesn’t take much for him to come; Gil feels huge inside him, and the thrill of someone looking up and seeing them, seeing John so utterly desperate for it, hurtles him close to the edge. He cups his other hand over the tip of his cock to catch his come so he won’t dirty the window, but Gil bats his fingers away.

“I want you to make a mess,” he breathes, and the tension in John’s body snaps and he spurts all over the windowpane, his cock jerking, whining and watching his white come slide down the glass.

Gil bites his shoulder hard enough to make him writhe and comes inside him, bursting hot into John’s ass, making him clench down in an attempt to keep it in. Gil pets his hands over John’s shivering muscles and slips out after a minute, after he’s started to go soft, and John’s absurdly grateful that he doesn’t just walk away because he’s pretty sure he’d collapse into a heap on the floor without some kind of support. Gil scoops him up into his arms and dumps him unceremoniously on the bed, grinning when John glares at him, and cleans up the mess on the window and then both their bodies.

They head down to Gil’s house on the Monday morning, going by rail, and Gil tips his head onto John’s shoulder and sleeps most of the journey. John strokes careful fingers through his hair, relaxing into the feeling of having Gil so close, despite the fact that they’ve just spent the entire last two days with each other. It doesn’t quite feel real yet, that he’s here with Gil, that he can reach out and touch him, that Gil’s voice isn’t on the end of a staticky phone connection.

The house Gil described to him turns out to be less of a house and more of a castle, really. John’s from wealth, knows how money functions, but this place has actual fucking _turrets_ and he can’t help but feel a little dwarfed by it all. Gil leads him through the foyer, up the grand staircase, showing John each room. There’s a gallery downstairs, Gil explains, and a dining room, but he seems much more excited to show John the master bedroom on the third floor complete with a sauna, and he almost vibrates out of his skin when leading John up to the fourth floor.

“This is my America room,” Gil says grandly, with a flourish, and John’s eyebrows raise in bemusement as he peers into what seems like a strange shrine to his own country, flags and books and paintings, sculptures, even swords are hanging on the walls. He slowly works his way around, Gil trailing after him like an excited puppy, and all he can really say once he finishes the entire loop is, “It’s nice.”

Gil seems satisfied with that, however, and ushers John back down into the kitchen, where the pantry is fully stocked and almost overflowing. Gil shoves a bunch of picnic food into a cardboard box he’s found and they lug it out into the garden, spreading out onto the warm grass for the afternoon. Gil has John’s shirt off in less than half an hour, is sucking his cock within minutes of that, and is making crude jokes about what a delicious lunch John makes while licking his lips clean of John’s come only a few minutes after that, too.

It pretty much sets the tone for John’s entire time at Château de Chavaniac, Gil prodding him along and showing him things and getting him off as many times as is possible in one twenty-four hour period. In any other scenario John’s cock probably would have fallen off by now, but he’s gone for so long without sex that’s not just his right hand that his cock valiantly manages to get hard over and over again, despite Gil seemingly wringing him dry.

He’s up one morning, his internal countdown telling him he’s got nine more days left with Gil, and he can tell it’s late because the sun is high in the sky. He’s alone in bed; Gil’s probably off somewhere cooking lunch, bless him, and John stretches out over the sheets, feeling pleasantly worn out and achey.

He eyes his open suitcase, wondering what he should wear today, before deciding to fuck it and just slide on one of Gil’s sweaters. Gil wears an odd combination of either completely skin tight or two sizes too big and hanging off his frame. John slips the rumpled jumper over his head, discarded maybe a few days ago and just not picked up again, a soft bottle green that falls down to his mid thigh. He catches himself walking passed the mirror, and slowly walks back so he can look properly.

He looks… Girlish, though that probably isn’t the right word. Delicate and sweet, rosy cheeks, swimming in his boyfriend’s sweater. He’d gotten waxed before he came, mostly because he uses his smooth legs to his advantage when wrestling, because if there’s no hair there then there’s nothing for his opponent to grip but sweat, but also because he likes how they feel bare, smooth and silky. He knows Gil likes it too, likes to fuck John’s smooth thighs, likes to scratch him up with his beard. Gil’s hairy, soft on his arms and chest and belly, scratchy on his cheeks, wiry on his legs. John likes it, John _loves_ it, but he himself prefers to wax it all off.

He considers himself in the mirror, and then walks over to his suitcase. He finds what he wants with minimal rummaging, and unfolds the pretty pink panties to look at them. They’re sheer, barely there flimsy fabric, and there’s a gap in the back to make them the equivalent of whatever crotchless panties are called for people who liked to get fucked in the ass. He slides them up his legs, wiggles his hips and readjusts his cock until he’s all tucked in, and then walks back to the mirror.

He looks the same as before, the sweater falling off his shoulders and looking more like a dress than anything. John bites his lip, slowly turns around and bends over just a little, looking over his shoulder at himself in the mirror. He rucks the sweater up a few inches and sighs at the sight. He looks good, his ass wrapped in pretty pink, the bulge of his balls just visible between his legs. He grips his asscheeks and pulls them apart slightly and there’s his hole, still a little red at the rim, peeking out from the gap in the fabric.

He goes downstairs, a pep in his walk, safe in the knowledge that he looks damn good. He kisses Gil on the cheek, easily accepting the kiss when Gil turns his head and makes it deeper. Gil murmurs a good morning against his lips and John says it back, smiling bashfully, feeling cute and sexy in his lingerie and his boyfriend’s sweater. Gil obviously thinks so too because his eyes stay glued to John, drinking in the long line of his legs, the flash of his shoulder as the sweater drops low.

He skips over to the fridge, still feeling Gil’s eyes on him, and deliberately bends at the waist, far lower than he needs to, and he hears Gil drop whatever he was holding with a clatter. He sways, wiggling his ass, pretending to be considering his options for breakfast.

“Apple or orange juice,” he muses, biting his lip. He shoots Gil an innocent look over his shoulder, coy, and asks, “What do you think?”

“I think that you are a tease,” Gil breathes, “And that you are beautiful.” He comes over and pulls John upright again, crowding him in until he’s pressed up against the fridge door, and rucks up his sweater to his ribs.

“What is this?” he inquires, squeezing the flesh of John’s ass, trailing his fingernails over the delicate fabric.

“A gift,” John manages to say, and Gil places his lips at the top of John’s spine and hums. John shivers.

“A very fine gift indeed,” he says, slow, and then steps away to pull John’s cheeks apart. His breath hitches abruptly, and John knows he’s managed to surprise him once more.

“You naughty thing,” he says reverently, his voice working in juxtaposition to his words. He makes it sound like John’s the best, most wonderful thing he’s ever seen, and John preens with the praise, his cock stirring in the panties.

“On the bed, all fours, now,” Gil orders, smacking him once on the ass, and John moans and obeys easily. He strips the sweater off and scrambles up, grabbing the lube from the bedside table as he goes. He knows Gil hasn’t explicitly told him to, but this is a _gift,_ and John wants to be gift wrapped perfectly for him.

He’s still a little bit loose from yesterday’s activities and the first finger goes in without a problem. There’s a little resistance around his second finger but he works it out in under a minute, pumping his fingers in and out quickly, trying to be ready in time. The third finger is a little more difficult, the angle not fantastic and his wrist starting to cramp, but he bites his lip and manages it, cramming into his hole with the tips of all three and then sinking them down as far as he can.

He takes them out eventually, waiting on all fours on the bed for Gil to come and join him. It takes a little while, and John figures he’s putting stuff away and making sure pans don’t catch fire from where he was making breakfast before, but it’s not long until the eager tread of Gil’s hurried footsteps echo up the stairs and he’s in the bedroom, groaning and crawling up the bed, settling himself behind John.

“Baby,” he sighs, sweeping his hands down John’s spine. He spreads John’s cheeks and groans again, seeing that John’s open and ready, and two of his fingers sink in, and then three, making sure he’s stretched.

“Begging for it, aren’t you,” he says almost conversationally, but John can hear the quick shuffling of fabric, the hurried sound of his zipper being tugged down, and then his cock is pressing at John’s entrance and forcing itself in, popping past the resistance and sliding in a few inches. Gil keeps it slow and steady, working himself in until John can feel the bite of his undone jeans on his ass.

It’s not until Gil leans over to whisper into John’s ear and the fabric of his shirt drags across John’s back that he realises Gil’s still got essentially all his clothes on. It’s indecent, the picture that John paints himself in his mind, him in his flimsy panties and Gil still fully clothed, sinking his cock into his tight little ass over and over, filling him up.

“You’re so pretty,” Gil sighs in his ear, “A pretty little princess,” and John gasps, breath hitching, and Gil starts to move his hips.

John’s cock stays trapped in the panties, obscenely fat and cramped up so his pre leaks everywhere. His balls feel snug and tight, cradled by the soft fabric, and Gil rubs his thumbs into the material clinging to his ass, telling him again and again how absolutely gorgeous he looks.

John whines and twists his hands into the sheets. Gil’s sped up enough that John knows he’s close, his cock sinking in and out of him at a frantic pace, his voice just starting to take on a strangled edge. He wants to touch himself, wants it so badly, wants to free his cock and make himself come. Gil bats his fingers away, though, when he reaches for it.

“Want you to come from just this,” he pants, pulling John’s body back and smacking his hips into John’s ass with the force of his thrusts.

As amazing as Gil’s cock is, John’s not entirely sure if he can come untouched. “I don’t- I don’t know if I can,” he whimpers, and Gil leans down close again. “Yes you can,” he whispers and John goes limp.

The friction of Gil’s cock is heady, the deep slide inside, the way the head of it catches on John’s rim and almost slips out. Gil bumps his prostate every now and then, making John jolt and more pre to blurt from the head of his cock. It’s too much and not enough at the same time, and he bites the sheets under him when Gil comes in a rush, hot hot hot inside, and John’s not there yet.

“It’s fine,” Gil groans, slipping out and petting over John’s sweaty back. “You’ll come on my cock soon, I promise. Be patient, baby.”

John whines, clenching his ass so Gil’s come doesn’t drip out. He doesn’t want to dirty his panties, even though the front of them are soaked in his pre already, but he wants to keep his ass pretty for whenever Gil wants to fill it again.

Gil kisses his spine, plays with his curls as his breathing smoothes out again. “You look so beautiful,” he whispers, running his fingers over John’s ribs. It makes him shiver and he clenches his ass harder, determined not to let any of Gil’s come slide from his body. Gil kisses his skin until he breathing is steady again, and then he gets up and leaves, saying he’ll be back soon.

John’s not entirely sure how soon ‘soon’ will be. He waits on the bed on all fours until his arms get tired and he presses his cheek into the sheets, letting his back arch so his ass is still up high. He’s tired but his dick is still very much standing to attention, or as much as it can stand while trapped in his panties. John wants to adjust himself, but he knows that would just lead to him wrapping his hand around his cock and jerking until he comes. It won’t be as satisfying without Gil, he knows, and Gil would be ever so disappointed in him if he didn’t get to make John come on his cock alone.

Gil wanders back eventually, a glass of water in his hand. He makes John push himself back onto his hands so he can tip the water into his mouth, quenching his dry throat. He strips off his clothes once he’s decided John’s had enough water and manoeuvres himself so he’s kneeling in front of John, and then commands him to suck.

He’s still soft. John groans, realising that Gil’s giving him a gift right back, and eagerly slips the tip of Gil’s cock in his mouth.

John loves this, loves to stuff his throat with Gil’s soft cock and work him into hardness, the warm wetness of his mouth enough to make him fat and heavy on his tongue. He didn’t get to do this often while Gil was in America, mostly because it’s an odd thing to request of someone, and also because he and Gil were almost constantly hard around each other. He makes the most of it now, keen and a bit sloppy, working Gil’s cock with his tongue until he starts to chub up. The harder Gil gets in his mouth, the less John can swallow around in his throat, and it’s with regret that he can only fit the first few inches into his mouth once Gil is fully hard.

“Good boy,” Gil pets over his hair and cups his cheeks, rubbing his thumb into where his cock pushes against John’s flesh. “You’re doing so well. Your hot little mouth is so good, almost as good as your ass. Suck, just on the tip, come on,” and John complies easily, rolling his lips over Gil’s foreskin and drinking down his pre.

“That’s enough now,” Gil says, his fingers pressing on John’s forehead to push him away and John whines. “I know, I know,” Gil says nonsensically, probably sensing how desperate John is and quickly moving from John’s face to his ass, spreading his cheeks again.

John can’t help the way his muscles relax, loosen, and some of Gil’s come slips out. He was doing _so well,_ he’d kept it inside for so long, and all that effort has been wasted in two seconds. Gil makes a surprised noise, hooking his thumbs into John’s hole and pulling him open even further, making more of his come drip out.

“You dirty boy,” he says, awed. “You greedy little thing. You so love to be messy, don’t you? Disgusting.” John shivers, his toes curling, and Gil laughs. “I love it.”

He slides his cock back in, rock hard from John’s mouth and still warm, and the seed that John’s managed to keep inside him all this time makes pornographic squelching noises as Gil fucks his cock in over and over. He takes pity on John, a little, and aims straight for his prostate every time.

“Gil, Gil, Gil,” John gasps, choking on his name. “Oh God, Gil, _please,”_ and Gil grunts and fucks him harder. John’s arms give out and he falls into the sheets, breathing fast, so close to coming. His cock _hurts,_ and his hole feels raw and abused, and Gil’s smell is everywhere. Gil snaps the elastic of his panties against his skin and John whimpers, weak with it.

 _“Papa,”_ he sobs and Gil swears under his breath and fucks him harder. “Papa, _please,_ ” he begs, again.

Gil groans and buries his face between John’s shoulder blades. “You are going to kill me, baby boy,” he pants into John’s skin and John tightens his ass and begs again.

Gil’s hips speed up even more, if it’s possible, and the edges of John’s world go blurry and white and he comes harder than he’s ever come in his _life,_ completely untouched, ruining his pretty pink panties with his come. Gil snaps his hips up hard once, twice, three times and pulls out suddenly, coming all over John’s back and ass, ruining the panties even more.

“Fuck,” he breathes as he collapses into the mattress on the other side of John. He moans in agreement, flopping onto his side. The panties start to go gross very quickly, tacky and uncomfortable, and Gil peels them down his hips and thighs and flings them across the room.

“Disgusting,” John wrinkles his nose, and Gil starts to lick John’s cock clean without a care in the world.

.

It’s disconcerting how fast time flies when John so frantically wishes it wouldn’t. The countdown in his head flicks ever closer to when he has to leave, and both he and Gil get a little frenzied towards the end.

They get high and Gil rides him reverse cowgirl, his ass bouncing on John’s cock. It’s both incredible and hilariously bad, because both of them keep spacing out and sort of forgetting they’re even having sex. John comes first, and Gil just sits back and waits for him to get hard again. It’s messy and terrible and wonderful, and they end up covered in come and sweat, stinking of weed, giggling into each other’s mouths until Gil starts to hum sad songs that make John’s chest feel like it’s caved in.

Alexander facetimes him one day in the afternoon, saying that Butter misses him, and then he stands the phone in front of where she’s laid out in the sun and John coos at her for ten minutes until she gets up and walks away. He’d been so caught up in Gil that he sort of forgot about her, and he feels terrible about it.

Gil starts to pack his bag for him, since John seems to be incapable of starting. He sits on the bed and sulks, watching Gil fold up his clothes neatly, and Gil sighs and purses his lips and flicks John on the forehead, telling him to grow up.

They fight, after that, but it’s not nasty. Both of them are dreading the moment when John has to leave, and they’re angry at something out of their control, not at each other. At the universe, for keeping them apart, John suggests, and Gil grumbles that he’s angry at the ocean for being so damn big.

Gil’s the one to get left behind at the airport, this time. They go through the same motions as before, except mirrored, because this time it’s John having to check in and walk away, and it’s Gil who’s clinging onto him for dear life.

Gil kisses him, deep and searching, like he’s trying to lick John’s soul out of his mouth and keep it in his chest. John wishes he could leave it here with Gil, but he kind of needs it if he’s going to survive the next few months without him.

“Stay,” Gil whispers into his cheek, clutching at his hoodie, and John closes his eyes and understands how Gil had felt leaving John behind all those months ago. He has to leave, he knows he has to leave, and he’s fucking miserable that he has to break both their hearts to do so.

He curls his fingers into Gil’s hair, watches his eyes fall shut, the way his eyelashes fan across his cheeks. He tips his head down and kisses his forehead, and then he walks away in one smooth movement, eyes blurring with tears but determined to make it to the security desks without turning around. Gil didn’t turn around, he remembers, but he’s not Gil.

He slumps in the middle of the airport, his shoulders shaking, wiping his wet eyes on his arm. He hears footsteps behind him and turns gratefully back into Gil’s arms, gripping him tightly, crying into his shirt. Gil sniffs and runs shaking fingers down his arms, shushing him.

“It’s okay, Jacky, it will be okay. I’ve got you,” he whispers. John tries to compose himself, snuffling wetly. He can’t imagine how unattractive he looks right now, but Gil just keeps touching him soothingly.

He stares at Gil’s face, his emotions spread out on his skin like words in a book, his eyes pained. His beautiful Gil, to whom his heart so utterly belongs, looks so sad and there’s nothing John can do about it.

“I love you,” he says finally, and Gil’s movements come to a standstill.

“You what?” he asks, voice faint.

“Love you,” John says again, “I love you.”

Gil lets out a shaky breath, his eyes looking suspiciously wet. “I love you too,” he whispers, and kisses him.

It’s kind of terrible, because they’re both crying a little bit, but it’s the best moment in John’s life, outside of meeting Gil for the first time, anyway. He’s always going to remember the taste of salt on Gil’s lips from his tears, the happy noise he makes against John’s mouth, how they have to stop kissing after a minute because they’re both smiling too hard to continue.

“I love you,” John says again, and Gil says, “I love you,” twists his hands into John’s shirt, and pushes him playfully away.

“Three months,” he says, holding up three fingers, and John’s own shake but he does the same.

“I love you,” he says again, and Gil grins.

“I love you too.”

He gets on the plane in the same routine as before, feeling a little out of it. He’s said it, finally said those words, and Gil said them back and it felt so right it’s indescribable. John’s heart beats happy and hard in his chest and he flexes his fingers against the armrests of his seat as the plane begins to taxi.

Three months, he thinks. He’ll go home and finish his stupid art degree, he’ll pet and feed and talk to Butter, he’ll find out whoever Alexander is sleeping with and mock him for it, he’ll probably get drunk and get into a few fights or at least lose a few fights in the ring, and he’ll call and text and Skype Gil, and tell him that he loves him over and over.

Three more months, he thinks, and a new countdown starts in his brain.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave kudos and nice comments, i slaved over this fic for too long for it to be unappreciated, if u read this and don't leave feedback then you're a dick :)))))))


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